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. 2014 Apr 2;9(4):e93534.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093534. eCollection 2014.

Exclusion performance in dwarf goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) and sheep (Ovis orientalis aries)

Christian Nawroth  1 , Eberhard von Borell  1 , Jan Langbein  2
Affiliations

Exclusion performance in dwarf goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) and sheep (Ovis orientalis aries)

Christian Nawroth et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Using a comparative approach, we investigated the ability of dwarf goats and sheep to use direct and indirect information about the location of a food reward in an object-choice task. Subjects had to choose between two cups with only one covering a reward. Before making a choice, subjects received information about the baited (direct information) or non-baited cup (indirect information). Both goats and sheep were able to use direct information (presence of food) in the object choice task. After controlling for local enhancement, we found that goats rather than sheep were able to use indirect information (i.e., the absence of food) to find a reward. The actual test setup could not clarify whether individual goats were able to inferentially reason about the content of the baited cup when only shown the content of the non-baited cup or if they simply avoided the empty cup in that situation. As browsing species, feral and wild goats exhibit highly selective feeding behaviour compared to the rather unselective grazing sheep. The potential influence of this species-specific foraging flexibility of goats and sheep for using direct and indirect information to find a food reward is discussed in relation to a higher aversion to losses in food acquisition in goats compared to sheep.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Illustration of the testing apparatus and subject position during testing.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Least square means (± SE) of correct choices in the different test conditions in experiments 1 and 2 for goats and sheep.
Subjects had to choose between two cups whereas only one was baited. Individuals were provided with full (‘both’), direct (‘baited’), indirect (‘empty’) or no information (‘control’) about the content of the two hiding locations. The corresponding cup(s) was/were lifted in experiment 1, whereas two inner cups (transparent or opaque) served as control for local enhancement effects in experiment 2 while both outer cups were lifted simultaneously in all test condition. Asterisks indicate significant differences between species and tests (P<0.05).
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